Citizenship and Immigration Committee on April 19th, 2016

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Yes, Mr. Farber.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

And the reason to refuse to allow revocation is not only that it's objectionable in principle but also because of the practical dangers of the slippery slope.

[David Tilson, Conservative, Dufferin—Caledon, ON]

Thank you, Ms. Lenard.

Mr.—

[Bernie M. Farber]

I accept partially what the professor has said; however, let me just speak very briefly on the whole issue of fraud and the revocation of citizenship. Let's be clear as to what the difference is.

A person comes to this country, say after World War II, and is asked if he or she was involved in anything that would put them in a situation where they could not become a Canadian citizen or they should not be allowed into this country, and they say, no, they've been a good person. It's discovered years later, as we've seen in this country, that in fact people were involved in Nazi war crimes, some of the most heinous of Nazi war crimes.

We're dealing with a situation here of a man in Kitchener who was involved in a death squad, a mobile death squad that murdered over 100,000 Jews. He was a translator in that death squad. He never made any mention of it when he came to Canada. He gained his citizenship by fraud. That's a lie. If you gain citizenship by misrepresentation and by fraud of that kind, there should be absolutely no question that revocation of citizenship and denaturalisation should be permitted. Virtually every major country, every major democracy in the world, does permit for denaturalization and loss of citizenship, as does the United States.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Mr. Farber.

[Bernie M. Farber]

One thing, let's bear in mind—

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

We're 15 seconds over.

[Bernie M. Farber]

Is it over?

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Unfortunately, we're 15 seconds over.

[Bernie M. Farber]

Maybe in the next round I can come back to how revocation is not handled all that well by this country.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you.

Ms. Kwan, you have seven minutes, please.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much, Mr. Chair.

I thank all the witnesses for their presentations.

I'd like to focus on the process after grounds have been established, or perhaps categories of individuals whose citizenship would be revoked.

In our previous presentations from other witnesses, the issue around process and due process was key. None of you has really touched on this, so I'd like to inquire whether or not, with the change of Bill C-24, the process is also altered. Bill C-6 does not bring back the process prior to Bill C-24, which is that for the persons whose citizenship is being revoked to go before the Federal Court for a decision, to be assessed on a case-by-case basis in terms of the due process to be followed.

I'd like to ask this question to you, Ms. Lenard, to see what your thoughts are with respect to that aspect of it.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

I'm afraid I don't have any comments on that.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Mr. Farber.

[Bernie M. Farber]

I have just a very brief comment.

There does remain in place, as I understand it, judicial review on revocation of citizenship. For example, I was talking earlier about an individual who has now gone through 20 years of having his citizenship removed because of his work as a translator in a Nazi death squad. That began in 1998, and he's still a citizen here in Canada because he was able to avail himself of reviews and judicial reviews all the way to the Supreme Court of Canada.

I'm not exactly sure where the situation lies in terms of Bill C-6 and Bill C-24 and the issue of protection, but it is clear to me that judicial review is permitted because it's permitted under fraudulent access to citizenship. There is still a way to ensure that justice is being done and is being seen to be done.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

On the question around statelessness, there are individuals here in Canada who are stateless. Bill C-6 does not address this issue. Those were provisions that were brought forward by Bill C-24 as well.

I wonder whether you have any comments with respect to the issue of statelessness and if there should be remedies put in place to address this.

Ms. Lenard.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

Thanks for the question.

I hadn't actually thought about that in relation to this bill. The set of international documents that cover statelessness effectively say that individuals have—and this is the Universal Declaration on Human Rights—a right to nationality, and the right also not to be arbitrarily deprived of a nationality. That's typically been understood as a legal obligation to avoid statelessness. I think it's probably useful to have a conversation about the legal obligations that the Canadian government has towards individuals who are stateless on its territory.

Typically, at least in European states, the way that's evaluated is with respect to the set of connections that my colleague here indicated, which is associated with connections to the country. It's usually understood that if an individual has been born here or been mainly raised here, and they nevertheless seem to be stateless for some reason.... I suppose Deepan is the standard-bearer for this kind of case. In that case, he was claimed by the last government to be stateless. In fact, all of his formative years were in Canada. He was born here, not under diplomatic protection.

In those kinds of cases, it would be useful to make clear that Canada has an obligation to avoid statelessness by either granting citizenship to all people who are born on this territory or whose formative years were here.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you.

Mr. Farber.

[Bernie M. Farber]

I'm not familiar enough with the law of statelessness to offer a reasoned opinion, other than to maybe offer a personal one.

As I said, my late father came here and he was stateless. We're talking about the late 1940s. At that time, he ended up working towards Canadian citizenship. I don't know if that has changed today. I am uncertain.

It would seem to me that the professor is quite correct, that there has to be an obligation. I would imagine that Canada accepts that obligation. If it needs to be codified, then it should be codified, because no one should be stateless.

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

Thank you very much.

There are people who, for a variety of reasons, are not able to establish their country of origin by birth, and through that process they're unable to make application for Canadian citizenship. Therefore, they're stateless, right? In that instance it's a very challenging situation for those individuals, because without citizenship obviously there are many rights to which they cannot have access. I was particularly interested to hear your points of view on how we should address that issue and whether with Bill C-6 we should find a way to address this issue by way of amendments, because it does not address it at this current time.

With respect to Bill C-6, there are other provisions that address the issue of citizenship, particularly barriers to access to citizenship. There are two areas related to that. One is the citizenship test by way of language, and then the other piece related to it is, of course, the fee. I wonder if you have any thoughts with respect to the language aspect. There's a two-level test at the moment, which creates barriers for people to access citizenship.

I'll go to Ms. Lenard.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

In general my understanding of Bill C-6 is that it goes back to the prior status quo about language requirements. Is that mistaken?

[Jenny Kwan, NDP, Vancouver East, BC]

It made a change with respect to the age. That's one aspect of it, but there remain outstanding concerns. For example, others have presented in the other committee meetings on the issue around offering proof of your language capacity. You have to have certification to prove that you have level 4 language capacity. That didn't exist prior to Bill C-24, and Bill C-6 does not address that. That's one example.

[Dr. Patti Tamara Lenard]

I didn't look specifically into that. In general I'm in favour of a very low bar for linguistic acquisition.

I naturalized into the United States, and I believe the English test consisted of my having to read the following sentence, “George Washington was at some point President of the United States.” That was the language test, and I was able to read it and I passed. I think that sort of model is generally the right one.

I'm generally sympathetic to the idea that citizenship should be on the easier side to acquire, especially with respect to language.

[The Chair, Liberal, Borys Wrzesnewskyj]

Thank you, Ms. Lenard.

Mr. Tabbara, you have seven minutes.

I understand you'll be splitting your time with Mr. Chen.

[Marwan Tabbara, Liberal, Kitchener South—Hespeler, ON]

Yes, that's correct.

Thank you to all the witnesses for being here today.

My question is for Ms. Saperia. You have made an interesting parallel in your numerous interventions between the citizenship revocation and the social contract, a pact between the state and its citizens. Citizens consent to abide by certain obligations towards the state in exchange for other benefits. However, on this particular approach, the Canadian Supreme Court has declared that the social contract requires the citizen to obey the laws created by a democratic process, but it does not follow that failure to do so nullifies the citizen's continued membership in a self-governing polity. Indeed the remedy of imprisonment for a term rather than permanent exile implies an acceptance of continued membership in the social order.

As you can see, the Supreme Court of Canada does not share the idea of the social contract as a compelling argument to justify citizenship revocation. What are your thoughts on the Supreme Court's statement?